Finishes and Starts

We had a great weekend visiting with family for the July 4th holiday, but I was ready to be home yesterday.   Since we were on the road visiting family, there wasn't much going on in the sewing room over the weekend. I did get in a good half day of sewing last Wednesday before we headed out.  The last of the borders was added to Vintage Dresses, so it is finally a finished flimsy. 

 Vintage Dresses by Charise Randell

I didn't have a lot of time with all the holiday stuff to get my normal staged photo, so I used the Scientist in Training's empty bed to see how it would look.  The side view shows off the border better. 

The binding will be a darker blue to end the theme of successive darker blues in the border.  I'm really happy with how this project turned out.  Now to get the backing made and prep the quilt to go out for quilting. I dread the prepping part. There will be lots of clean up on the back to be sure no threads show through to the front.

That's the finish for last week.  I gave into temptation and started a new project last Wednesday.  Kevin The Quilter started a scrappy mystery quilt along.  

The quilt along uses two colors of scraps. After looking at my bulging bag of 2.5" strips, it was pretty obvious that getting some of those strips into a quilt would help my storage situation.  Brown and blue were two of the biggest piles. So that's what I started with. 

It didn't long to whip up a few 4 patches from these strips. 

These 4 patches work up pretty quickly.  The next clue doesn't come out till the end of July, so I should be able to finish off most of this clue before the next one comes out.  

Linking up with the usual Monday show and tell posts. 

Monday Making
Monday Design Wall
Main Crush Monday

Daisy Chain Mystery - Block Construction

Alison (Little Bunny Quilts) has released the first step in quilt assembly process for the Daisy Chain Mystery quilt.  

I didn't get very far, but here's what's made it to the design wall so far. 

 Daisy Chain Mystery
2019 Little Bunny Quilts Mystery
by Alison of Honey, Bunny & Doll Designs

The fabrics used in this mystery were all left overs from other projects and they worked out pretty well. I'm happy with my star chains. That's part of the fun in a mystery quilt is seeing how your fabric choices worked out.  Just 10 more to make and I'll be ready for the big reveal with the next clue. 

Daisy Chain: Playing Catch Up

It's catch up time for the Daisy Chain Mystery quilt along. 

Alison is giving everyone three weeks to get all caught up on the bits and pieces needed to start assembling the next step on May 6th.  But you can link up today over at Little Bunny Quilts to show off all the progress on your block components. 

Here's a sampling of my bits and pieces for the twin sized quilt.  I've finished all but the border block D (far left) pieces.  I only need 8 more of those and I'll be ready for the next step when it gets posted.  I'm very curious to see how all these pieces fit together in the final quilt. 

Daisy Chain Mystery - Clue 4 in Progress

It's been a bit rough the last couple of weeks, a business trip and this respiratory illness have really impacted my sewing time. Alison (Little Bunny Quilts) released clue 4 of the Daisy Chain Mystery on Monday, so I'm catch up mode at the moment.  

This clue calls for more 4 patches, though linear rather than square. 

My stitching time has been limited, but I've gotten one strip set made and have a few of the border chunks completed.  Someone called my tan fabrics serene rather than boring, I like that description.  With such serene border colors, that black paisley should take center stage, which was the plan.   

I'm still working on getting all of the clue 3 blocks finished, just ten more to make there.  Clue 4 ends the parts and pieces part of the mystery quilt.  We've got a few weeks to catch up before clue 5, where we start assembling the quilt, comes out on May 6th.  So if you haven't made a start you definitely have some time to select some fabrics and catch up on making the parts and pieces.  

Daisy Chain Mystery: Focus on the Focal Fabric

Yesterday Alison released clue #3 for the Daisy Chain Mystery quilt along. 

Now we get to play with the focus fabric.  

I love this dark paisley print, it works very nicely in this week's ribbon blocks.  These blocks take a bit more effort (and trimming) then the 4 patches in clue 1 and 2.  I only managed about half the count needed for the throw size quilt.  But the other half should come together pretty quickly when I find a solid hour to stitch later this week.  There's still time to grab the other other two clues and stitch along. Clues are posted every 2 weeks over at Alison's blog, Little Bunny Quilts.  

Daisy Chain Mystery: Still Mystified

The second clue in the Daisy Chain Mystery quilt along over at Little Bunny Quilts was released yesterday.  

Clue two calls for more 4-patches, scrappy ones for this step. 

My tans are a bit bland.  Hopefully the bright red in clue one will keep the quilt from looking too bland. 

The first two clues look good together.  Can't wait for clue 3!  There's still time to catch up, clue 2 went to together really fast.  Hope you decide to stitch along.  

2018 Ambitions: Uneven Progress, The Third Quarter Summary

Way back in December of 2017, I participated with Quilting Jetgirl's 2018 Planning Party by putting together a set of quilting ambitions for the year.  Now that third quarter is over it's time to assess how things have gone so far this year.  

Ambition #1: Shorten the UFO List

If you compare the above chart to the one I posted on the mid-year update, I've gone down by one.  So there's been progress, just not a lot of it.  I'm doing a good job of finishing my newer projects, but not so hot at finishing off my older projects.  I've been pulling out a new UFO a month to work on and there's been a lot of progress on each, but I've just not managed to get many to the completed quilt stage. 

Ambition #2:  Participate in select quilt along/mysteries

 Squared Away Sampler
designed by Mari (The Academic Quilter) and Angela (Soscrappy)
The 2018 Rainbow Scrap Challenge Project

            
I'm actually up to date on this year's Rainbow Scrap Project, Squared Away.  All but October's blocks are done, I just don't have an updated picture yet. 

I had planned to participate in the Meadow Mist Design's Plus Sign Sampler Quilt Along, but the sampler just didn't appeal to me.  So instead, I signed up for the Halloween Mystery quilt along at my local quilt shop.  

 Halloween Mystery
designed by Carrie Randall (Quilter's Hideaway)

The Halloween mystery was such fun, that I've signed up for the Christmas mystery as well.  That one isn't on my list, but it uses up stash (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it).  I'm also planning to do Bonnie Hunter's annual mystery quilt that should kick off at the end of October with the fabric requirements.  

Ambition #3:  Find 15 minutes to stitch each day.

      Success rate = 93.95%

This ambition is on track.  I'm hoping to end the year at 90% or better. 

Ambition #4: Stash Management
     Purchase less than 5 yards per quarter - nope didn't happen
     Organize the stash - a little progress
     Use only stash fabrics for any new projects - on track

Ambition #5:  Blog once a week
      121 blog posts for 40 weeks = 3/week

So I'm on track here. 

So everything is on track except for finishing quilts and stash management.  Areas to work on for 2019. 

Here's the project progress since midyear:

February Project: Magnolia Mystery - Done

 

April Project: En Provence - Done

 




June Project - Red, White and Blue Stars (blocks finished)

 

July Project - Inverted Stars (border blocks finished)

 


August Project - Twinkle Star Quilt (blocks finished)

 

September Project - On Ringo Lake (made more blocks)

 


So there were two finishes last quarter, plus a lot of progress.  So it's all good.  Hopefully there will be at least two finishes for the last quarter.  I have a graduation quilt to finish before Christmas!  

Good luck with your ambitions for the fourth quarter.  It's always a busy time of year.  

Vacation Stitching: The Big Reveal

Today is the last day of our Christmas vacation.  Since New Year's came on a Sunday, the company holiday is today.  So we are off one more day. My Guy was playing with the idea of making beer today or just doing nothing but hanging out.  I'm going to do just a bit of laundry and then spend what time I can in the sewing room.  Drama Teen goes back to school today, she's not amused.  

Yesterday was the big reveal for Bonnie Hunter's 2017 mystery quilt.  I was way behind on making my blocks, but I managed to get enough together to lay out one block and a bit of the sashing. 

 En Provence, A Bonnie Hunter Mystery (2016)

I tried the gold fabric that was supposed to be my yellow and I just didn't like it.  After playing around in EQ with other options, the neutral just worked the best to my mind.  Thankfully I have enough of it to let me use it as a substitute.  Here's how the mock up looked. 

 En Provence, A Bonnie Hunter Mystery (2016)

I like this version best.  I did play with adding the border blocks but EQ wasn't real cooperative there.  That's OK, I like this well enough to proceed with my modifications.  I'm hoping there is enough of the dark blue to make 12 blocks. We'll see, I may end up with just 9.  If that's the case, I'll add some additional borders to up the size just a bit.  

Thank you Bonnie for a very fun mystery.  Hopefully I can finish this one before the 2017 mystery starts next November.  Now I want a second cup of coffee before I go look at what everyone was up to over the weekend.  

Linking up with
Main Crush Monday
Monday Making
Design Wall Monday

A Finish for the October One Monthly Goal

Normally I post on Monday and sometimes on Wednesday but this week we've had intermittent Internet issues, so I've not been able to get a post drafted.  Those issues seemed to be resolved, so hopefully I'll get this post written before we have to head off to work.  

It's the end of another month.  Which means it's time to report on the October One Monthly Goal.

The plan for October was to bind Allietare, the Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt from last year.  Bonnie just posted the fabric requirements for this year's mystery, En Provence.  I really wanted to have Allietarer finished before starting on this year's mystery.   Trudy finished the quilting several months ago.  I just hadn't taken the time to get the binding made,  attached and sewn to to the back.  

This is where I was last Friday.  Only about 10 inches of hand stitching left.  This is also a good shot of the striped backing fabric.  I was afraid it would be a bit overwhelming, but it's actually not.  

The stripe actually looks pretty subtle when you stand back a bit. Here's the finished front.

Allietare
 Bonnie Hunter's 2015 Mystery Quil
Started November 27, 2015, Finished October 23, 2016

The binding is the darker blue from the center.  It makes a nice frame for the rest of the quilt.  The patriotic colors worked so well with this pattern.  This is my favorite Bonnie Hunter Mystery to date. 

Since Allietare is being donated to QOV, Trudy kept with a patriotic theme and quilted a star in a star pattern over the whole quilt.  

Now I can start the 2016 Bonnie Hunter mystery with minimal guilt.  I say minimal because Celtic Solstice, Bonnie's 2013 mystery, is still in pieces somewhere in my sewing room.  With the graduation quilts taking center stage this year and early next year, it's not likely to get finished any time soon.  At least the 2014 and 2015 mystery quilts have been finished. 

This is the 10th month I've participated in the One Monthly Goal challenge over at Red Letter Quilts.  I've met 9 of my 10 goals so far this year, so the extra push has really helped me move projects along.  Hard to believe it's almost time to come up with November's goal. 

In addition to linking up with Heidi for October's Monthly Goal, I'm linking up with Finish It Up Friday and Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop.  

Have a great weekend!  

One Monthly Goal - January's Completed

I don't normally draft blog posts this late, but the head cold that materialized out of nowhere this morning isn't letting me sleep. I might as well do something to keep my mind off the fact I'm not sleeping.   That's why I was sewing this evening, I was tired of sitting in the recliner trying to nap.  At least stitching took my mind off the worst of the cold symptoms.  (I don't usually get sick this often, this winter has been very unkind to my immune system).  

Part of my 2016 goals is to finish 8 quilts this year.  The most I've ever finished is 7, so it's going to take extraordinary measures to be successful this year.  So I decided to join Heidi of Red Letter Quilts in picking One Monthly Goal. January's goal was to finish piecing the McCall's Mystery Quilt and piece a back.  The mystery quilt was a finished flimsy on January 16th. 

McCall's Mystery Quilt, From McCall's Quilting Magazine
Jan/Feb, April/May, June/July 2012 issues

The plan was to use the focus fabric as the backing.  But this was a much bigger quilt than I expected and there wasn't enough of the yellow and blue teapot fabric to make the whole back.  An old tone on tone pink was the best option to fill out the backing.  After a few problems with the quilt math, the back was finally finished this evening.  

There are still 2 days in January, so I finished my goal just a tad early.  After a bit of pressing and de-threading this quilt will be ready to go out for quilting. But that's on next month's list of things to do.  

I'm linking up with Heidi's end of the month One Monthly Goal linky party.  You can hop over there to check out all the other finished goals.   

Monday Design Wall - My Grand Illusion of Progress

Why weekends are so short has to be one of those universal questions we all ask come Monday morning. I know I'm certainly asking it today.  It doesn't help that Drama Teen has driver's ed starting at 6:30 AM.  It's up and out the door pretty quickly these days.  I do get to work earlier, but I don't seem to manage to leave any earlier.  Oh well, just two more weeks of the early mornings.  I'm not sure who will be happier when driver's ed is over, me or DT. 

Saturday night was Drama Teen's Winter Formal, so there was a bit of time spent doing hair and make up, as well as making a few adjustments to her dress.  Plus, it was a wonderful warm and sunny weekend.  We took advantage of the nice weather on Sunday and went to the park for a nice long walk.  So not as much time was spent in the sewing room.  

In spite of all the activities, a bit of progress was made on the little design wall.  

Grand Illusion - A Bonnie Hunter Mystery and
Inverted Starby Jessica Boschem of Common Threads
available from Craftsy as a free download

The second row of Grand Illusion is starting to take shape.  I'm going to use all the block pieces I've gotten finished, then decide if I need to make any more to finish off this quilt.  My version won't be as big as Bonnie's. 

All the red-violet pieces of the last Inverted Star block are going to need to be moved soon.  It only needs 6 more HSTs before I can start stitching it together.  Then I'll have to find another white in my stash to finish it off as I don't have any more of the white I used in the HSTs.  

On the other design wall, the Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler hasn't changed any, but I have added a few more parts to the pieced border. 

I need to get going on this border if I want to have it done by the end of the month.  

That's it for my design wall process this week.  I'm linking up to Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday.   

Tuesday Archives - Mystery Quilts

When I read Val's prompt for this week's Tuesday Archives I completely blanked on the name of the first mystery quilt I made.   That made it a bit hard to find on the blog. I read through all my blog labels, but nothing seemed to ring any bells.   I finally had to go back to my digital quilt catalog to figure out what I'd named that quilt. 

After a bit of scrolling through the document I finally found the right page.  

Oh yeah, I remember now, Old Fashioned Mystery.  Armed with the name, I found the original blog post (here).  This quilt was finished the during my first year as a blogger.  Old Fashioned Mystery ended up going to a niece for her 21st birthday.  I was stitching the binding on when were were home for Thanksgiving and she commented how much she liked it. Little did she know that with those words that she was offering it a good home.  She was pretty surprised when she opened it later that year, but she was quite happy with it.  She promised me that it would be her cuddle quilt when she was reading.     

For more historical quilting perspectives, check out this week's Tuesday Archives Post over at Val's Quilting Studio.   

Monday Design Wall - Progress on Both Design Walls

Why is it that Monday's are only bad if you have to go to work?   It's Monday, but since I'm not going in to the office today, the day has all kinds of possibilities and I didn't dread getting up.  Actually Drama Teen and I have plans for today.  She's out of school for a teacher in-service.  We do have to wait around for the UPS truck as My Guy is getting a delivery that has to be signed for.  But once we get that handled we are heading out to find DT a dress for the upcoming school winter formal.  One of DT's more fashion conscious friends was going to go with us, but she may have the flu, so I think we're on our own.  I won't say that's a dangerous thing, but I'm not well known for having a stellar fashion sense.  DT is a jeans and T-shirt kind of girl, so dress shopping isn't her thing either.  Like I said earlier, all kinds of possibilities there.  

I've actually made some progress on both design walls this week.  On the small design wall, I've finished up more of the sashing for Grand Illusion.

Grand Illusion
A Bonnie Hunter Mystery

I'm still not sure how much I like this quilt, but I'll use up all the blocks I've got made and then decide what to do with it.  

On the big design wall, the Rainbow Challenge 2014 Sampler is almost a finished flimsy.  Just one more row of blocks to stitch together.  Once those are done, I can sew the two halves together. 

 Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler
By Angela Feldbush of Soscrappy

I'm still contemplating border options for this quilt.  Pieced borders aren't one of my favorite things to make, but that seems to be the best option for this project.  I've got a few ideas mocked up in EQ, I'll play for a few days and see what comes out of that.  

That's it for my design walls this week.  For more in works in progress, check out all the links over at Patchwork Times.  

Grand Illusion - Step III

The holiday madness pretty much dominated the weekend, at least the parts when I wasn't asleep in the recliner.  I'm still feeling a bit under the weather.  Some holiday stuff  got done because it had too.  My Guy's family gifts got wrapped and packaged for shipping.   I signed, addressed and stamped 51 Christmas cards.  That wasn't as bad as it sounds.  Several years ago I set up an Access database with all the addresses.  So each year, all I have to do is update the database, then do a print merge with the Avery address label form set up in Publisher.  So after the cards are signed, I just have to stick the label on the envelope.  So it's better than the days when I hand wrote all the addresses, but it still makes for a lot of peeling and sticking.  Too bad I no longer have a 5 year old who likes to play with stickers.  

Some stitching did get done this weekend in between the holiday prep.  I made some progress with Step 3 of Bonnie Hunter's Grand Illusion mystery. 

I have lots of 4-patch strips made, but only managed to get 4 sets sewn together.  Still, that's better than no progress at all.  A few more 4 patches from step 1 and diamond rectangles from step 2 are up on the design wall. 

Drama Teen won't have so much going on this week as after school activities are canceled as it's finals week, so we will not be running as much in the evenings.  But, I need to make a batch of cookies as part of a Christmas present for someone and then wrap a few other gifts.  Hopefully, I'll still be able work in some stitching time here and there during the week.  

I'm linking up with Judy's regular Design Wall Monday post and Bonnie's weekly Grand Illusion post.  One more thing on the to do list is to find some time for a cup of coffee so I can go ooh and aah at what's up on everyone else's design space.